Laurie Peterson, Inkbrite

Ellen Scanlon (00:00):

This podcast discusses cannabis, and is intended for audiences 21 and over. Welcome back to How to Do the Pot, a podcast de-mystifying cannabis for women. I’m Ellen Scanlon. On these short episodes, we share women’s stories about the first time they bought legal weed. Today’s story comes from a woman who sought out cannabis for her migraines. If you suffer from migraines, stay tuned to How to Do the Pot this summer for an episode about how women are finding relief from painful symptoms with cannabis. Our guest today is Laurie Peterson, the California-based founder of Inkbrite, a technology startup building the easiest way for cannabis brands to create compliant retail packaging,

Laurie Peterson (00:45):

I was having lunch with an elderly friend of mine, and I was telling her about my migraines and all the things I’ve been going through to try to improve my migraine situation. She said, “Well, what’s really worked for me and my pain is medical marijuana.” This is someone who’s always really been a mentor to me in my career, and I usually do what she says. This was just a month before recreational was allowed in California. She said, “After lunch, go down here, get your medical marijuana card, and then go around the corner and visit your first dispensary.” And so I did what my friend suggested, and I went in and I got my card. At that point, it was a little too late to go to the dispensary. So I woke up in the morning, and I parked and I stood in line to be one of the first ones to get in the dispensary when it opened that morning.

Laurie Peterson (01:45):

I got to say, the feeling I had standing there surrounded by security guards and a few other people waiting, I felt a little embarrassed. I felt like, “Wow, what has become of me, that here I am at 8:30 in the morning waiting in line for this?” But once I was in there, I was like, “Oh, it’s a nice looking place.” I felt somewhat comfortable. I got assigned to a budtender. I remember the budtender said, “Do you like flour?” And I thought, “I don’t know what this person is talking about.” Because back in my day, we would call them buds, right? I didn’t know the lingo. I felt really out of place and a bit awkward, but I was very genuine and thinking, “Maybe this could be a solution that works for me.” So anyways, I ordered just something experimental; a gram of Purple Champagne, some CBD. I may have also bought a topical spray.

Laurie Peterson (02:47):

And so I remember getting this, and I had spent about $60 total, and holding this in my hand, I thought to myself, “Wow, this baggie doesn’t look much different than the weed I bought off of the skaters back in Acacia Park in high school.” Which, by the way, was the previous time I had bought weed. And so I thought to myself, “Well, now I’m a mom and having this in my hand doesn’t feel quite right.” That was really the moment that sparked something in me, something that made me think maybe I could contribute to this industry. Because I felt I had a real need to seek out cannabis, and the process and especially the packaging, being cannabis, wasn’t welcoming to me inside that. What if I can take these inventor skills that I have from the toy industry and I can bring them into cannabis and I can use that creativity to create better looking packaging? Maybe by doing that, it’ll help people like me feel more comfortable. So it’ll help welcome in new demographics that haven’t been a part of the cannabis industry to make us feel more comfortable, to normalize the experience by better mimicking consumer product packaging, which is something I’ve done for years in the toy industry.

Laurie Peterson (04:16):

And so that was the moment that I thought, “Wow, maybe I could do something about this.”

Ellen Scanlon (04:29):

Thanks for listening to this episode of How to Do the Pot. If you’d like to share your story about the first time you bought legal weed, please send us a voice memo to hi@dothepot.com or DM us @dothepot. Please also follow along on all our socials and visit dothepot.com for lots more information about women and cannabis. Thanks to April Pride, Madi Fair, our brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, and we’ll be back soon with more of How to Do the Pot.